If this post is just disjointed, you all should consider yourself lucky, as I have seven or eight threads of thought running through my head at the moment and I don't really have the will to untangle them.
I like poetry, I really do, but it's always so hard to get into. Every once in a while I'll just choose a poet who I've heard of and start reading some of their stuff. I always like it (because I only pick the greats, I guess), but I guess I forget about it.
Ezra Pound is a lunatic, I suppose... whether he was ever truly insane or not, is a moot point in my mind. He looks like a raving mad-man and he writes like one, so why not. Apparently he even spent twenty days outside in a cage once.
He was famous for his anti-semitism, for his treason, for his support of Mussolini... but despite all that, what he's really famous for is his poetry. He's famous for being the founder of modernism... Can I hate him for being a horrible, hate-filled, vitriol spewing, lunatic? Of course... but does that mean I dislike his writing any less? I don't really know... I don't like I do.
It would be different if I lived during his time, I'm sure... just as it would be different had I lived with Vlad the Impaler or Cesare Borgia or even Alexander the Great. But do I hate them? No... they did some awful things, sure, but they're interesting, they're curiosities.
If he ate a lot of babies or destroyed the moon or something... maybe I'd boycott his work, but I just can't. I can't just ignore his contribution to mankind because he was a horrible person.
Despite everything, he still wrote this:
" Ancient Music
Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM."
(courtesy of www.english.uiuc.edu)
It's Ezra Pound week... because I proclaimed it to be, despite the fact that the week's almost over. Maybe that's all he deserves. Maybe he deserves nothing, but his writing does, because I think it was better than he was.
Next week it might be another poet's turn, but I sort of doubt it... I just wish I had the time.
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1 comment:
Ah, Ezra Pound. We need to read some more of his stuff. Ezra Pound week is not over yet!
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